An example of a method for controlling a cooking process in a cooking appliance is described in EP 0 074 764 B1. The known method can be used for different types of food to be cooked. In order to infer the type of food to be cooked at this moment in time, the output signal of a gas sensor located in the cooking chamber is evaluated in an electrical controller of the cooking appliance at two different points in time at the beginning of the cooking process, the type of food to be cooked being dete mined from the quotient of the two sensor output signals. The cooking process is stopped as soon as the sensor output signal reaches a value which depends on the type of food to be cooked.
German Patent Application DE 103 00 465 A1 describes a method for controlling a cooking process in a cooking appliance which is provided with a sensor for this purpose. Said sensor is in the form of a humidity sensor and is in signal communication with an electrical controller of the cooking appliance. The electrical controller includes a memory and an evaluation circuit, the memory having stored therein a multiplicity of sets of reference values, which each have associated therewith sets of parameters for the electrical controller. In the known method, the evaluation circuit generates from the gas concentration detected during the cooking process a set of values which corresponds to the shape of a function that depends on the gas concentration from a starting time t0 to a current time tn during the cooking process. The evaluation circuit generates from the sets of reference values respective sets of comparison values for the comparison at the time tn; the multiplicity of sets of comparison values being compared to the set of values. The set of comparison values which comes closest to the set of values is automatically selected by the evaluation circuit, and the set of parameters associated with this set of comparison values is transformed to the time tn by means of an algorithm. The cooking process is controlled by the electrical controller in this manner until the ending time of the cooking process is reached.
Another method is described in EP 1 382 260 A2, in which a cooking appliance, especially one for baking, is controlled according to the output signal of a gas sensor. To this end, sets of reference values associated with individual baking mixtures are stored in a memory of the appliance controller. Using an input device, the user selects one of the stored baking mixtures, and thereby a set of reference values whose associated parameters are used by the controller for the cooking process. If, during the cooking process controlled in this manner, deviations occur between the values detected by the sensor and the reference values, the baking process is changed or stopped.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,681,496 A describes another method for controlling a cooking process, in which a humidity sensor is used. Here, too, similar to the method described in DE 103 00 465 A1, the comparison between a set of measured values and a multiplicity of stored sets of comparison values is made only once. The parameters determined in this way are set for the further cooking process which, after the comparison, is controlled independently of subsequent changes in the humidity level in the cooking chamber.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,349,163 A describes a method for controlling a cooking process, in which a carbon dioxide sensor is used. The further course of the cooking process is determined according to the change in the carbon dioxide concentration during the cooking process.